U.S. patent application number 11/341471 was filed with the patent office on 2007-08-02 for mobile phone with automatic recording function.
Invention is credited to Wen-Hua Sun.
Application Number | 20070178934 11/341471 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 38322766 |
Filed Date | 2007-08-02 |
United States Patent
Application |
20070178934 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Sun; Wen-Hua |
August 2, 2007 |
Mobile phone with automatic recording function
Abstract
A mobile phone with automatic recording function includes a
voice recorder realized by a digital voice recording device. The
voice recorder uses a solid state nonvolatile memory as a storage
medium. The voice recorder is controlled by a controller for
activating and stopping voice recording. The controller
automatically activates the voice recorder for voice recording
without manual operation when the mobile phone starts to make phone
call or starts to receive phone call. The controller automatically
stops the voice recorder without manual operation when the
conversation is finished, or actions to make phone call or start to
receive phone call are ended. The voice record item comprises
information such as dial beginning time, call-reception beginning
time, conversation beginning time, conversation duration and
telephone number of another party for future review and
reference.
Inventors: |
Sun; Wen-Hua; (Taipei,
TW) |
Correspondence
Address: |
HDSL
4331 STEVENS BATTLE LANE
FAIRFAX
VA
22033
US
|
Family ID: |
38322766 |
Appl. No.: |
11/341471 |
Filed: |
January 30, 2006 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
455/550.1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04M 1/656 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
455/550.1 |
International
Class: |
H04M 1/00 20060101
H04M001/00 |
Claims
1. A mobile phone with automatic recording function, comprising a
mobile phone circuit capable of bidirectional communication with a
mobile communication network, comprising a receiver receiving a
wireless signal from the mobile communication network; a
transmitter sending a wireless signal to the mobile communication
network; a controller electrically connected to the receiver and
the transmitter and controlling operation of the transmitter and
the receiver; and a voice recorder electrically connected to the
controller, wherein the controller automatically activates the
voice recorder for recording voice into a voice record item at a
time the mobile phone starts to make phone call or starts to
receive phone call, and the controller automatically stops the
voice recorder at a time the conversation finishes, or actions to
make phone call or start to receive phone call ends.
2. The mobile phone as in claim 1, wherein the voice recorder is a
digital voice recording device.
3. The mobile phone as in claim 2, wherein the voice recorder uses
a solid state nonvolatile memory as a storage medium.
4. The mobile phone as in claim 3, wherein the storage medium is a
flash memory.
5. The mobile phone as in claim 3, wherein the storage medium is an
EEPROM.
6. The mobile phone as in claim 1, wherein the voice record item
comprises at least one of dial beginning time, call-reception
beginning time, conversation beginning time, conversation duration
and telephone number of another party.
7. A method for automatically recording voice for a mobile phone,
the mobile phone comprising a voice recorder, the method comprising
automatically activating the voice recorder for recording a voice
record item when the mobile phone starts to make phone call or
starts to receive phone call; and automatically stopping the voice
recorder at a time the conversation finishes, or actions to make
phone call or start to receive phone call ends.
8. The method as in claim 7, wherein the voice record item
comprises at least one of dial beginning time, call-reception
beginning time, conversation beginning time, conversation duration
and telephone number of another party.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] 1. Field of the Invention
[0002] The present invention relates to a mobile phone. More
particularly, it concerns a mobile phone with recording
function.
[0003] 2. Description of Prior Art
[0004] Mobile phones have become the important tools of
communication. In the past, communication was always made at fixed
locations through fixed network telephones. However, it has been
changed into communication at unfixed location through mobile
phones. Spatial limitation of communication has been broken by
mobile phones. With the maturity and popularity of mobile
communication networks and mobile phones, the conversation quality
and additional functions of the mobile phone always keep
increasing, however, the costs of phone calling have been low
enough to be comparable with fixed telephone, even cheaper. The
mobile phone is being used much more frequently than the fixed
telephone. There are many people that even use mobile phone as
their only communicative tool. Now it can be said that people's
dependence upon the mobile phone has exceeded the fixed
telephone.
[0005] The mobile phones have the advantage of communication
everywhere. However, some conventional recording medium such as
paper and pen may not be available at a place where the user uses
mobile phones. Therefore, mobile phones with voice recording
ability are provided to record voice message during conversation.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,740,543, No. 5,867,793 and No.
5,995,824 disclosed mobile phones with voice recording ability,
wherein the conversation in phone call is recorded and user can
rehear the voice message after finishing the phone call. However,
user needs to manually operate some record button to record voice
message during conversation when using such conventional mobile
phones with voice recording ability. For commercial or professional
users needing to record each phone call, it is troublesome. The
user may forget to operate the record button or press wrong button.
Moreover, the beginning part of a phone call is important to
identify the calling party or the called party. For example, the
uncertainty in the identification of calling party or the called
party is essential when the recorded voice message is used for
legal or potentially legal evidence.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0006] The present invention is to provide a mobile phone with
automatic recording function. The mobile phone with automatic
recording function can automatically record a conversation when a
phone call dialing or reception starts. Therefore, no voice
information including ring tone and ring back tone will be
lost.
[0007] Accordingly, the present invention provides a mobile phone
with automatic recording function, which includes a controller for
controlling a voice recorder. The controller automatically
activates the voice recorder for voice recording without manual
operation when a phone call dialing or reception starts. The
controller automatically stops the voice recorder without manual
operation when the phone call finishes. The voice record item
comprises information such as dial beginning time, call-reception
beginning time, conversation beginning time, conversation duration
and telephone number of another party for future review and
reference.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING
[0008] The features of the invention believed to be novel are set
forth with particularity in the appended claims. The invention
itself however may be best understood by reference to the following
detailed description of the invention, which describes certain
exemplary embodiments of the invention, taken in conjunction with
the accompanying drawings in which:
[0009] FIG. 1 shows the block diagram of the mobile phone with
automatic recording function according to a preferred embodiment of
the present invention.
[0010] FIG. 2 shows a flowchart for operating the mobile phone with
automatic recording function according to a preferred embodiment of
the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0011] FIG. 1 shows the block diagram of the mobile phone with
automatic recording function according to a preferred embodiment of
the present invention. The mobile phone has a mobile phone
circuitry 1, which comprises a receiver 11, a transmitter 12 and a
controller 13. The receiver 11 receives an RF signal emitted from a
base station (not shown) through an antenna 5. The RF signal is
demodulated by the receiver 11 and then sent to the controller 13
for signal processing. The transmitter 12 modulates a signal sent
from the controller 13 and then sends the modulated signal to the
base station through the antenna 5. The controller 13 is the
console for the whole mobile phone circuitry 1 and controls other
peripheral circuits. The controller 13 is connected to a keypad 21
for user input and a display 22 for displaying the status and
message of the mobile phone circuitry 1. The controller 13 is also
connected to an audio circuit 4 for processing an audio signal
input from the microphone 42 and processing the audio signal before
sending to a loudspeaker 41. The loudspeaker 41 and the microphone
42 are used as earpiece and mouthpiece for the mobile phone
circuitry 1, respectively.
[0012] A voice recorder 3 is connected to the controller 13 and
controlled by the controller 13. The voice recorder 3 is a digital
voice recording device and can use solid state nonvolatile memory
for a storage medium. The solid state nonvolatile memory, for
example, can be flash memory or electrically erasable programmable
read only memory (EEPROM). The controller 13 executes phone call
receiving and making through the receiver 11 and the transmitter
12. At the beginning of a phone call dialing or reception through
the mobile phone circuitry 1, the controller 13 will automatically
activate the voice recorder 3 for voice recording without manual
operation. When the phone call is finished, the controller 13 will
automatically stop the voice recorder 3 without manual operation.
Therefore, entire bilateral conversation, including user and
another party, can be automatically recorded into a voice record
item. Moreover, ring back tone for calling party and ring tone for
called party are also recorded in the voice record item. Preferably
each voice record item also comprises information such as dial
beginning time, call-reception beginning time, conversation
beginning time, conversation duration and telephone number of
another party for future review and reference. In other word, the
voice recorder 3 can be automatically activated for voice recording
without manual operation, no matter the user is calling party or
called party.
[0013] In above preferred embodiment, the voice record starting
time is advanced to the dial beginning time or the call-reception
beginning time. Therefore, the ring back tone and ring tone can
also be recorded. In other words, the unanswered phone calls for
calling party or called party can be recorded with ring back tone
or ring tone, respectively. Therefore, the calling history with
ring back tone and the called history with ring tone can be
recorded.
[0014] In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the
dial beginning time is referred to as the time point when user
presses dial key to make phone call or dials number by voice. The
call-reception beginning time is referred to as the time point when
incoming ring begins to ring.
[0015] The inquiry and review of the voice record item can be
selected through the keypad 21 and the display 22. The selection
index can be the dial beginning time, the call-reception beginning
time, the conversation beginning time or the telephone number of
another party. When the user has selected a voice record item for
review, the controller 13 reads the selected voice record item from
the voice recorder 3 and then sends the selected voice record item
to the audio circuit 4 and the loudspeaker 41 for playback. It
should be known for person having ordinary skill in the art that
the voice record item stored in the voice recorder 3 can be sent to
another external storage medium through an interface of the mobile
phone. Alternatively, the voice record item stored in the voice
recorder 3 can be playbacked through an external loudspeaker.
[0016] FIG. 2 shows a flowchart for operating the mobile phone with
automatic recording function according to a preferred embodiment of
the present invention. When the mobile phone is at dial beginning
time or call-reception beginning time in step S11, the voice
recorder 3 is automatically activated for voice recording in step
S12. Step 13 judges the end of call-making or call-receiving. When
the call is not answered, for example, the calling party hangs up
before the called party pick up phone call or the called party
rejects phone call, the voice recorder 3 stops voice record in step
S16. When the phone call is answered, for example, the called party
answers phone call before the calling party hangs up or the called
party has answered phone, the voice recorder 3 starts for
recording. In step S14, the conversation starts and conversation
content is recorded by the voice recorder 3. In step S15, the
conversation is ended and the voice recorder 3 stops voice record
in step S16. In this preferred embodiment, the record starting time
of the controller 13 is advanced to the dial beginning time and the
call-reception beginning time. Therefore, the ring back tone and
ring tone before conversation can also be recorded. In other word,
the unanswered phone calls for calling party or called party can be
recorded with ring back tone or ring tone. Therefore, the calling
history with ring back tone and the called history with ring tone
can be recorded for user with specific purpose.
[0017] Although the present invention has been described with
reference to the preferred embodiment thereof, it will be
understood that the invention is not limited to the details
thereof. Various substitutions and modifications have suggested in
the foregoing description, and other will occur to those of
ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, all such substitutions and
modifications are intended to be embraced within the scope of the
invention as defined in the appended claims.
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